There are instances where
I will stop loving you.
If you hurt me
and I don't leave,
then I am blind.
Love may be blind,
but it is not unconditional.

If we could hold the sun
within the palms of our hands,
would we at last feel warm?
Would the ice that formed
within my aorta melt?
Or maybe
it would all evaporate
and we would die,
feeling warm for once in our lives.

soft light through curtains
yellow crumpled duvet
rain pattering on the roof
stretch and breathe
forget the dreams
smell of coffee and toast
Good Morning

I keep looking for someone
who sees the world how I do.
Swirling metaphors
and striking colors,
Sunsets and beauty
and tragedy....

But perhaps I need
a facts and figures
Logical kind of person,
To pull my head out of the clouds.

What is it that makes someone attractive?
How do you define beauty?
Is it cheekbones flushed with pleasure?
Collarbones bruised with passion?
The way the slender fingers dance across piano keys?
Sleepy voices cracking softly?
The curve of hips against silk?
Five o'clock stubble against smooth skin?
Muscles tensing and spines arching?
What is attraction?

Snakes
Being alone forever
The dining room table
The mysterious food in my fridge
Inadequacy
Nail salons
Being forgotten
Alleys in the dead of night

Why does it always seem
like my best
is
not
good
enough?

I dreamt I married someone beautiful
and when I woke up,
I was still alone.
I'm afraid of that.

There are no boundaries
      in this world
Only the walls that we create.
      Socially acceptable questions
with socially predictable answers,
    * Stay in the box
             color in the lines
                   follow directions *
There are no boundaries
        in this world

You think you're so righteous.
But God knows she's not a doctor.
Do doctors know they aren't god?

She was the kind of girl
who breathed life in her kiss
and lit a fire in my spine.
She gambled with death
and won my life.
I'm a bit afraid of her,
But now I can never die
for her grip on my soul is too tight.

I should say Bon appetite
when I hand you my poems
because I know how you
devour the words.
Perhaps I should be honored,
But I'm a little afraid that
You'll know me too well.

My writing is not
pudding cups,
spring picnic in the park.
It should hurt
Like burning your tongue
and getting a brain freeze.
Does it cause you pain?
Can you actually feel what I do?

A poet should keep some to herself
because life is hard to swallow.
I can't forgive you for
reading my choking poems
where there's nothing but air
To take my breath away.

I should be honored,
but I am afraid that
You'll know me too well

Do you have sympathy for the devil?
because I would not mind being
your second, third, fifth, last choice,
because it would mean, no matter how little,
I would still be wanted.

I joined the church choir
but I don't think I believe in God.
I guess the preacher should be
Preaching to the choir.
But the preacher's my dad
and I'm a disappointment.
So I joined the church choir,
because I like to sing,
And it's not so hard to pretend
not to be a failure in your parents eyes.

I dreamt that you left,
And I cried tears of blood.
They say dreams have meaning,
and I don't know what that means,
but I think you're killing me

I'm drowning in the stiff upper lip silence of the room draped in black.
Mourning, they say. Mourning for loss. Sorry, they say. Sorry this happened.
She was young, so vibrant. There was light and life and joy in her eyes. There was so much for her, they say.
But I saw the way life embraced her and left her skin greying and her breath ragged. She wasn't okay and there wasn't anything vibrant about her and when I begged her to talk to me, or not to me, but to someone, to get help, to please keep breathing, she refused me.
Why was I the only one who saw her fall to pieces?
Why didn't they help her?
why is she gone?
I don't understand.

I hope you grow up innocent.

I never felt safe in my own house.
Could never climb the stairs without
nervous glancing, gazelle fleeing.
Could never turn off the lights
without another light beckoning in the distance
to guide me to safety like a white moth to flame.
His voice still echoes in the dining room,
I never fixed the holes he punched in the walls.
I don't know how to fix the ruins he's made,
To undo the damages he's done,
So for me,
This home will forever be haunted.

Watch your body fall to pieces.
It will not be the first to give up on you,
but it won't be the last, either.

When your nose bleeds,
resist the urge to scream.
It is only because all you've eaten
in the past three days was a grape.
Calcium deficiency.

Your skin will turn yellow
and your nails will be brittle.
It's not beautiful.
You will not look like the plastic
photo lies on the magazine covers.

Your body is consuming itself.
Maybe it sounds like poetry,
but it tastes like fear.
The fear of gaining weight,
the fear of not being perfect.

Your heart will weaken,
your kidneys could fail,

If you die of anorexia nervosa,
it will not be beautiful.
It will not be poetic.
It is grotesque and painful.
The doctors will shove tubes down your throat
just to keep you alive,
while your mind screams,
we can't have those calories

How do you waste away?
It's easy to do.
Hate every piece of yourself
until it's so small you can't feel it.

Somewhere along the way,
I decided it was better to feel nothing at all.
Better not to hurt, not feel, not to suffer.
The canary in my birdcage heart has stopped singing
and we all know it's dead,
It's time to leave before we all perish
in the wasteland of myself.

You make me feel
like I've been
struck by lightening.
Heart stop
Electrify
I can feel my veins burning.
Coursing through my bones
I can't tell if it hurts or tingles.

The truth is
God is five years old.
She was born in 2010.
She's never known a world
without computers,
without constant war,
without the fear of terrorists,
without news everyday of another shooting.
Today, she looked at me
and asked why her world
is falling to pieces in our hands.
I couldn't answer her.

Sell your soul and change your life
You won't miss it all that  much.
You won't be here in the morning.
Just think of it-
riches, love, knowledge, power.
Anything you could ever want.
You'll barely notice it's gone and
I know, I know you'll be content.

Play

I am not the answer
I don't know the answers
Google it
I am not the reason the wax melts.
After years of staring at the flame,
entrancing, dancing, blue and yellow flame,
I've decided to touch it.
Ninety-nine cents per lighter
They told me not to touch it
but I like to do things I'm not supposed to.
Like kissing girls and eating icing off of the cupcakes.
Touching the flame is just another rule to break.
See wikipedia for a list of breakable rules.

I bought this candle for you
Only he knew I can't sleep without
the window cracked a  bit.
Researchers say that's bad for your health.

The flame flickers
But I didn't have the answers,
and I couldn't find them.
He wanted instantaneous,
but I'm still a bit old fashioned
in this digital age.
Everything changes so fast.
Get the latest updates on your device!

A breath, a whoosh, the flame is gone.
I knew things were different when
we reached out to touch *(the screen) but

*Pause

I have a tendency to change the pronouns
in the poems I write.
I love him.
It used to be her.
He makes me weak.
She makes my heart flutter
a staccato panic against my ribs.
It's time I told the truth in my writing.

She was my warm cup of tea
at midnight after a nightmare.
She was my fresh from the dryer blanket.
She was my favorite book,
a new glasses cleaning cloth.
She was sugar for my coffee.
She was beautiful,
But I could never say
I loved her.

"Can a heart still break once
it's stopped beating?"
Will your breath turn to butterflies
and fly far away from here?
When will things stop feeling so empty
without your presence to fill the silence?
I miss you
I don't know what to do.
They keep saying it's a pity that you died so young.
But that doesn't do the loss of you justice.

You say it is heaven
when I let you touch me,
So I ignore the way your
whispers sound like demons.
I'd let you drag me to hell,
If only to be called an angel.

Are you an empty soul,
or just empty inside?

My friends often say it was close enough
But close enough is just like almost
and close enough...
wasn't enough

When a boy tells you
he loves you,
Nothing tells you it's a lie.
No alarms go off,
No one warns you.
No one tells you
that all he will do
is hurt you and demand
you say
you love him too.
And it's too late to go back.

I read somewhere
that we dream in
              Black
          and
white
       So,
           why is it
that my dreams are vivid,
                         and life is dreary,
          only colored with
                              crimson blood stains?

Everything I touch
turns to gold.
I can't be the one to hold you
or wipe away your tears.
I long for contact,
To feel the warmth of another.
I want you,
I long for you:
But everything I touch
turns so cold,
And I don't want to be the one
to freeze you.

We parted ways,
never to see each other,
not to speak again.
It was a healthier way,
happier, less painful.

So tell me why I miss you,
tell me why it still hurts
when I think of you.
My mind wanders at night,
and it hurts the most at 3 AM

It was for the best, wasn't it?

"Because I could not stop for death-
He kindly stopped for me."
It was horrific,
A kind of backwards birth;
A gulp for air,
A pitiful sob,
The intimate undoing.
Death may have stopped for me,
But it wasn't me he took.

You sleep all day
and wonder why
you can't sleep at night.
Close your eyes,
open them,
Say we're in love,
cheat when she's not looking.
Say we're happy,
cry when we're alone.
We are all lying.

He asked me about my scars...
And I could't answer,
filling the silence with
that disgust and fear welling up in my chest.
This would be the end of us.
That's how it always is.
You can fill cracks with gold,
you can paint over the streaks,
but it's not the same
and no one wants a broken girl.
Not even as friends like us.
but he just looked at me and said
You should know that you're perfect
and don't need any of that.
*...And you're feisty.

I only create
so that I can destroy
and the love I so crave
burns when I hold it,
like the still smoldering ashes of my poetry
when I scooped them from the fire.
My hands are red
and it hurts to touch,
to be touched,
and maybe that's why
no on can love me
...because I burn them all

He held out his hand to me,
but when I reached for his support,
he let me fall.
He looked at me
eyes so cold,
his voice sharp, wounding
"I'm not here to help you."

If I could breath fire,
I'd inhale,
And never let it go,
Just to feel alive again,
Just to feel like I was burning
with passion like I used to.

I can see the shadows.
No, not your shadow,
The shadows.
The ones that crawl up your spine,
leaving little bruises along your back.
The ones that wrap themselves around your mind
and whisper horrible things in your head.
Their tendrils reach out,
looking desperately for others,
wrap their inky, dangerous selves around your friends,
because when they consume you,
they'll need a new host.

I was a tragedy
But you thought
I was a comedy

I hope you don't mind
that I love you.

Your tears taste like vinegar;
bitter, angry, unforgiving.
Stare into the fire,
the dancing flame,
the warmth on chilled skin.
Reach out for it,
but never touch.
How did I become such a monster?
I didn't meet her until
the day she died.
I never understood:
This was living;
damaged, empty, alone,
but this was living.

A man once told me
that hands say more than lips
and eyes cannot lie.

So I knew,
when your hand struck my face,
and your gaze hardened;
the apologies on your lips
meant nothing.